


The road is long

by RoseSkellington



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseSkellington/pseuds/RoseSkellington
Summary: The boys stop for a spur-of-the-moment camping trip. It's nice to rest and recharge for a couple of days. And Sam's feelings for his brother won't be a problem at all in this tiny cabin in the desert. No sir. Nope. Not even a little bit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first ficlet! Please be gentle. ^_^

It was an unusual day. The Winchesters had to drive across the country, but it wasn't life-or-death: the ghost Sam found in San Diego was only scaring people so far, meaning they could take their time.

The brothers were in the desert of the southwest, and there were no other cars on the road for miles. There was just dust, tumbleweeds, powerlines, and them-and the road, of course.

Dean was singing along to the radio, and Sam snuck a picture of him with his phone. The phone made a noise when the camera went off though, and Dean whirled around. "What did you do that for, Sammy?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. He was feeling embarrassed, but he didn't want to show it. He thought his phone was on silent. "It's a nice day today. Just wanted to remember it."

Dean's face softened, but he cleared his throat and turned back to the road. It was a good thing there weren't any other cars out here. "Yeah, Sammy. It is nice."

Dean not making a joke of it only made Sam more embarrassed. He squirmed in his seat. But after a minute Dean turned up the radio again and went back to singing.

The air in the desert was very clear, not too hot at this time of year and windy in the Impala. There really was nobody else around, and even though Sam knew it was selfish, he wanted this to last forever. He didn't want to get to San Diego, he didn't want to park the car and get a motel room, he didn't want to share Dean with anybody. Thinking such things made him feel like a freak. After all, Dean didn't think like that...did he?

In the driver's seat, Dean cleared his throat. "Hey, look," he said. He nodded at a billboard. "Camping up ahead."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." The advertisement was for cabins and trailer hitches in Gold Rush Canyon, 13 miles ahead. But they'd both used the bathroom just an hour ago, and anyway, they were in the middle of nowhere, they could just pee on the side of the road.

Dean said, "Your ghost isn't killing anybody, right? Just scaring them?"

Sam was confused. "That's right. Why?"

"Maybe we should stop and do some camping. You know, since we're not in a hurry for once."

Sam's confusion slowly changed into hope. "I guess we could do that. We've got blankets in the back."

"And beer in the cooler," Dean said.

"There isn't a lot to eat, though."

Dean waves a hand. "We have beef jerky and Pringles, what more do we need?"

Usually Sam would have pointed out how unhealthy that was. He knew he wouldn't really want to eat those things, so he'd probably end up sleeping on an empty stomach. But it was worth going hungry to know that Dean wanted to draw this out as much as he did.

"Yeah, alright," Sam said. "Let's go camping."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? I might add another chapter later, but I haven't decided yet. Thanks for reading!


	2. Cabin for two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to keep going. Sorry that I don't have a beta; I'm just messing around for fun. Rating might go up in future chapters.

2

The road from the highway to the campground wasn't very well maintained, and Dean cursed and swore the whole way down it. Sam hid a smile and, when Dean muttered and patted the car on its dashboard like an injured horse, he pretended not to see.

They had to drive toward the orange ridge that Sam guessed was Gold Rush canyon for almost a mile before they saw a little booth next to a gate that was just a wire strung between two posts with a sign on it that read, 'Gold Rush Canyon Campground.' There was a person in the booth who startled awake when Dean parked and honked the horn.

She—it was a young woman, a little overweight—stared at them open-mouthed for a second before she scrambled for a clipboard. "Oh! Hello. Can I help you? Are you lost?"

"This the campground?"

She perked up a little. "Yeah, it is."

"Then no, not lost. What kind of sites do you have?"

"Trailer hitch, primitive, and cabin," she said promptly.

Dean turned to Sam. "What do you think, Sammy? Sleep under the stars?"

Sam started to say yes, but then he looked out the windshield. Down the road a little he saw families milling around vans, campers, and trucks. "Cabin, maybe?" he suggested, thinking about the noise.

Yeah, that was it. The noise. That was definitely what he was thinking about, and not how much he hated the idea of spending this camping trip where everybody could see them. After all, it wasn't like they were going to do anything inappropriate; they shouldn't even need to take the guns out of the car. Anyway, if they wanted to sleep on dirt, they could pick a direction to walk and do it for free.

Dean followed his gaze to the campground. He turned to the girl. "Got a map?"

"Yessir!" The girl handed over a hand-drawn and Xeroxed map of the campground, and Sam and Dean bent over it on the Impala's seat.

Most of the trailer and primitive sites were clustered around a box marked 'Camp Store' and a legend for showers and toilets. Several of the cabins were distributed around the edge of the cluster in a semicircle, with the rest strung up and down the banks of the small river that flowed through the canyon. Dean pointed at one on the very bottom of the map, farther away from the hubbub and from its nearest neighbor than any of the others, and said, casually, "What about that one?"

Sam's heart did a tiny flip-flop. Which didn't make any sense; Dean chose the one farthest away because that was what Winchesters always did, not because he felt the same kind of strange jealousy Sam did at the idea of not having any privacy with his brother.

"Sounds good," Sam said, equally casually.

Dean handed the map back to the girl. "Is Number 9 free?"

She craned her neck to see. "Oh. Yes, it's free, but it's small. Most of the cabins have bunk beds, but 9 and 4 only have one queen."

Sam's heart sank. Oh, well.

"We'll manage," Dean said.

"We will?" Sam said stupidly.

Dean turned to him, surprised. "Dude, we sleep in the car, are you really gonna be a princess about sharing a queen?"

"Number 9 is fine," Sam told the girl hastily.

Dean gave him a weird look, but they paid and proceeded slowly through the gate after the girl moved the wire barrier.

Gold Rush Campground was small and obviously family-run. It sat in a flat place that interrupted the wall of the canyon and looked over a small, peacefully trickling river. The bottom of the canyon was dotted with bushes and aspens and cactuses. The canyon itself wasn't much—it wasn't especially big, or especially deep, or especially distinctive, or especially anything. It was just a little, out-of-the-way place and Sam guessed that they got most of their clientele from the same billboard he and Dean had seen.

Sam was happy to see a little commissary store near the central shower building. No doubt it would be over-priced, but they'd have Ramen Noodles or something. And a teeny, tiny part of him maybe started to spin out a fantasy where they woke up tomorrow and weren't ready to leave and, thanks to having access to what was technically food, didn't have to.

They parked in the gravel lot just past the gate and looked around the campground. The place was maybe a quarter full, most of the families concentrated in the semicircular area near the showers, kids running around and playing in the fire rings or along the banks of the river. The canyon floor wasn't forested and its walls were eroded low, so it was light and bright even in what was now late afternoon. Really, the canyon walls were just high enough to give the area a sense of protection.

They followed a dirt path parallel to the river that wound through desert sages and rabbit burrows. The river was shallow in autumn, broken into several streams that meandered through the stones and pebbles of its bed. The sound was musical and calm.

Dean perked up when they saw their cabin. "Hey, check it out. Grill." There was a picnic bench to go with it, too.

The cabin was indeed small, but not as tiny as Sam had envisioned when the gate attendant had questioned their choice. It was long and narrow, shotgun construction, with a little porch in front. The place wasn't meant for long-term stay, but they'd be able to move around in there.

Sam stopped and looked around the canyon. It was sheltered, pretty, and unthreatening. When the stars came out, they'd have a great view. He felt sudden, piercing gratitude that Dean had suggested this.

When they let themselves in, skylights in the roof showed a long room with a rustic table and chairs under the front window and a bedstead against the back wall. Through a door cut in the back wall Sam was pleasantly surprised to see a bathroom. He poked his head through. There was a toilet, a tiny sink, and a shower cubicle half-hid by a cloudy sheet of plastic. It was cramped, but considering he'd thought a moment ago they'd have to make their way to the public building at the center of the camp every time they needed facilities, it was an un-looked-for luxury.

Back in the main room, Dean had already set his duffel down on the floor and Sam joined him. "We'll have to get the sleeping bags out," Dean nodded at the bed. It had a thin foam pad mattress but no sheets or blankets. It didn't look like there was any electricity, but they always had enough lanterns, flashlights, and batteries on hand to illuminate the hours-long process of digging up a grave several times over.

It was going to get cold, though.

Duly, he and Dean fetched lights and sleeping bags, and when Sam stepped back from unrolling the sleeping bags side by side on the mattress, he felt quiet satisfaction. It was a small, private feeling. They could be comfortable here.

"I'm going back to the car," he threw over his shoulder to Dean, who was rummaging around in his bag for something. "Get a couple books out."

"Hold up, I'll come with. Wanna check out the store."

"'Kay."

Sam leaned against the wall and stuck his hands in his pockets and let his mind go pleasantly blank. The sun through the plastic bubble of the skylight lit up dust motes, Dean's hair, his cheekbones, and the tips of his eyelashes. Idly Sam wondered what he was hunting for.

"Ah-ha!"

Dean held up a pack of cards, grinned, and waggled his eyebrows. "Strip poker?"

Sam ignored the little kick of warmth Dean's joke put in his belly. "Kids, Dean. Like twenty of them."

"Aw, c'mon. There's ten of the little ankle-biters out there at the most."

"We're in the middle of nowhere, Dean; if we get arrested for indecent exposure, we'll probably have to hitchhike six counties over to break the car out of impound."

"Spoilsport. Alright, tell you what: winner gets to order the loser to do anything he wants."

Sam felt himself grinning slowly back. "You're on."

Dean pocketed the deck of cards, and they headed for the center of camp, Dean still whistling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this story probably isn't interesting to anybody else, but honestly? I just want Sam and Dean Winchester to have a nice vacation. So I'm gonna give them one.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some quality time for the brothers. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post this! Haven't been able to write much lately. But this story is my happy place right now...

Sam's hand hesitated over the trunk. Specifically, it hesitated over a thick, slightly mildewed tome about ancient cult practices in Rome.

This was the book he should be reading. This was knowledge; this was a treasure-trove of details that might become important at any time. This could contain something that would save lives.

'Fuck it,' he thought, and his hand picked up an Agatha Christie.

Dean, for his part, had armed himself with a well-worn copy of _The Fellowship of the Ring_. He only read that book when he was feeling particularly at ease, Sam knew, and the knowledge drained the chronic tension out his own muscles. There was often this kind of feedback loop between him and Dean. Sometimes it could be a bad thing—very bad indeed—but at times like this it could be great, too. It wasn't telepathy or even empathy exactly, but it was a profound connection nevertheless. In some ways, maybe even a deeper one than any of those supernatural links would have been. It was an everyday, human kind of magic where such tiny and essentially unimportant minutiae as a battered paperback could end up meaning so much.

"Dude, come on, I wanna see if they have marshmallows."

Dean's voice shook Sam out of his reverie. He closed the trunk and hoisted their sleeping bags over his shoulder.

The sun was angling low toward the horizon, taking on a warm orange cast even as the air grew cool. Dean bumped his shoulder with his. "You're quiet," he remarked as they walked the short path from the parking lot to the store.

"Just enjoying," Sam said truthfully. "I dunno, it's a nice little spot."

Dean walked on for three, four, five paces. "Yeah, it is," he agreed quietly.

The commissary store was an open-fronted shack, more or less: a refrigerator stood at one end, a freezer at the other, and dry goods were on display in the glass counter that ran the length of the shop in the middle. Behind the counter, a bean-pole man with snowy hair and a mustache like a white broom stood. He had large, kind brown eyes, and didn't look quite old enough for his white hair.

"What can I do ya for?" he called out as Sam and Dean approached.

"Got any marshmallows back there?" Dean asked.

"We certainly do." The man reached down and thumped a plastic basket full of items down on the countertop. "Can do you one better and sell you our s'mores kit, if you like."

Dean's eyes lit up. "We'll take it," Sam said with a grin.

Maybe the place was kind of hokey. Maybe it was an odd place for two single, adult men to vacation, and maybe they should have felt awkward being here—like grown-ups in a Chuck-E-Cheese. But this was starting to feel like the kind of camping trip they should have had as kids, the kind Sam had always pictured every time he lobbied their dad to let him join the Boy Scouts, and it didn't feel silly. It just felt good.

The shopkeeper, who they were unsurprised to learn was also the campground's owner and the gate attendant's uncle, pointed them to hot dogs in the fridge and charcoal, too. He introduced himself as Warren. They loitered for a few minutes, Dean chatting with Warren, Sam mostly looking out over the canyon landscape and soaking up the pointless and friendly conversation like sunbeams. 

Warren consulted his watch. "I'll be closing up this place in about an hour," he told them. "Think you'll be wanting anything else?"

Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam who shrugged and shook his head. "Think we're good."

"Alright then, you boys have a nice stay. Watch out for coyotes at night." He pronounced it 'kai-yotes.'

As he fired up the grill, Dean couldn't have looked happier. "Man, this place is great."

Dean's childlike enthusiasm got a laugh out of Sam, though not because he disagreed. "It kind of is. I wasn't expecting a lot just off the billboard, but, I dunno. I'm glad we stopped."

"Admit it, Sammy: I'm a genius."

Sam paused. "Yeah, Dean." He spoke quietly and seriously. "You are."

Dean blushed and cleared his throat. "Pass me those paper plates."

By the time they finished their hot dogs—saving their s'mores for later—the sun was going down and the air was cooling off. The canyon looked pretty, tranquil with its little river threading through it and all the trees and plants dotted between sandstone—like a fairyland. "Walk?" Sam proposed.

They strolled in silence, just taking in the scenery. The sunset dyed the already colorful canyon walls dramatic crimsons and vermilions. Sam wanted to reach out and take Dean's hand, and immediately felt stupid for it. But walking at his side, bumping shoulders occasionally, both of them huddled in their jackets, was just as good.

The colors of sunset gave way to twilight pastels: red to pink, orange to lavender, yellow to deepening blue. The quarter moon began to glow stronger and stronger while a few stars glimmered just above the canyon's low walls. They had strayed quite some distance downstream from the camp, and the kids and families there were audible just as a background noise of life and happiness over the river's quiet trickle.

Sam grappled with an unfamiliar feeling for a while before he realized what it was. He felt safe here. Protected. Normal. He knew they couldn't stay forever, but just for now, all their responsibilities and troubles seemed far away and unimportant.

Unspoken, they sat on a large, flat boulder when the camp's lights disappeared around a bend and looked up at the stars. It was still early, and the sky was dominated by the moon, but they watched what stars there were for a good, long time.

With just as little need for discussion, eventually they pushed to their feet and started back, both hunkered down far into their jackets for warmth. Sam toed at the multi-colored gravel bordering the burbling river. A few slender aspens rustled in the breeze. When the camp's lights came back into view, they started talking again, just shooting the breeze, mostly Dean cracking lame jokes and Sam laughing.

They stepped back onto the foot-worn path that meant they were almost back to their cabin. "So, s'mores and poker?" Dean asked.

"Definitely," said Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we find out who wins the poker game and what they order the other one to do, promise ;)


End file.
